Parenting fail?

Completely appropriate dot-to-dot

Linden and I were at a bakery today while Oak was at therapy.  She asked me to make her a dot-to-dot.  I am artistically challenged.  I looked around the place for inspiration, and saw their vases, which were wine bottles painted black.

I dotted.  She drew.  Then she added in the cork and a label,  including her dad's name.  I'm not the only one who thinks of him as The Winemaker.  She wrote "Win" and asked, "Is that how you spell wine?"  I almost said, "In a sense, yes," but I went with the straight answer and had her add an e.

A few minutes later, as we sat in the bakery with this displayed between us, it suddenly occurred to me that this may not be the world's most child friendly dot-to-dot theme.

Nearly a Year

The Winemaker and I just had a very rare morning alone together.  My school year wound down a few days before the kids', so I'm home for their last day of school.  We went out for coffee and ran a few exciting errands (bank, grocery store, etc.)  It was lovely.  That may sound sarcastic, but I mean it.  Just to have two hours of my husband's company.  Lovely.

As we came in the front door, I noticed the two painted plastic "wind chimes" hanging in the front window.  The kids won the kits at a school art night, and knew right where they wanted to put the finished products.

There are bikes strewn all over our front porch, and picture books and early readers from the library sprinkled liberally all over the house.  The quilt my mom and I made when I was sixteen is not here on the couch for me to cuddle with, because when Linden was sick, she got very attached to it, and has moved it up to her own room to cuddle with.  There is, however, a large stuffed bunny by my feet. And some leaning towers of clean laundry.  The bin of colored pencils that's permanently sitting on the china hutch, the "oh my God I just scrubbed this two hours ago" stickiness of the dining room table, the hanging basket we bought to remember their birth mom on Mother's Day, the pillow airing out on the front porch after someone somehow managed to get the corner of it when that person wet the bed, and yes, the art on the fridge.  This house holds children.

We are nearing our one year mark.  I talked to Linden about that, about which date we should commemorate (although instead of "commemorate" I said "bake a cake on").  The date we met, which was also the date they were handed into our full time care, forever? The date the adoption was finalized?  The date we came home?  She and I both lean towards the latter.  This house is where we are becoming a family.  They've lived here less time than they did in the orphanage, less time than they did with their birth family.  We're still struggling, all of us, every day.

And we're making progress.  We're learning.  We are brave, we are loving, we keep trying.  There are bikes on our front porch, and the bathrooms are almost always pretty sketchy, and this is my family.

Excuse me, but I have to go meet a school bus.  Let us all welcome summer.

The Rest of the Story

That nap turned out to be pneumonia, by the way.  When I took her temperature Saturday, the numbers whizzed by on the thermometer rather the way the cost rings up when you're getting gas in the car.  This definitely helped build up my credibility with the "you need to take a nap" thing.

I  made it to my doctor's appointment too.  And cried.  In the waiting room, while filling out the screening form.  I think the receptionist might have made a discreet note on it:  "Please give this woman meds."  Then I cried some more while telling my sweet little doctor that I get so angry at my kids that I'm afraid I'm going to hurt them.  She said nice things, and gave me some sensible advice, prescribed Zoloft (which I had just learned can help with anger as well as depression) and wondered in her mild way if Oak might also benefit from something to take the edge off his anxiety, which is at the base of a lot of his more enraging behaviors.  She even used the phrase PTSD, which somehow impressed me.

I keep reading or hearing that kids from tough places will be misdiagnosed as ADHD or oppositional, because their behaviors will be similar, but that meds for those diagnoses will be wrong, because the cause is so different.  At our first school conference, I said something to Oaks' teachers about this, and they all (classroom teacher, ELD teacher and counselor) looked at me funny and said, "No, I wouldn't have said he has any attention issues at all.  He's quite able to focus.  It's more the way he behaves when he's stressed out or there are transitions..."  Now the doctor seems equally well in tune with the way our kids' background will affect them.  I like this.

The school where I work is undergoing a "digital conversion" which is fancy talk for getting one iPad for each student.  As part of this, teachers got an iPad mini and a Macbook Air to take home and familiarize ourselves with over the summer.  Don't be hating on me.  I'll be equipped for blogging, at any rate.  Don't let the door hit you on the way out, decrepit old off-brand laptop.

Two steps forward, one step back.

I'm not sure where to start, much less where to go from there, but part of trying to get out of the sh*tstorm that Mother's Day launched is trying to get myself to write.

I could start by saying that after heavy blog reading (Orange Rhino, Hands Free Mama, and some essays about anger and parenting on Creative with Kids), and watching some of the new videos we ordered from Karyn Purvis, I had three good days in a row.  Days where I responded gently and kindly, and helped kids regulate, and followed their lead in play, and caught them being good.  I even did a craft, dammit.  It didn't work the way it was supposed to, but we had fun making it anyway.

Then I came home today, and my husband was stressed and wanted some TLC, and my daughter kept trying to touch me in her most space invasive ways, and my son was acting up to obtain the remaining shred of my attention, and I kind of lost it. 

Again.

While I was in the midst of my three good days, I finally got up the courage to call my doctor's office and make an appointment to talk about my mental health.  I can't keep going, 'Oh, hey, I got this, I got thi--WHOOPS!" 

I can say that too many people wanting my physical touch at the same time was a trigger.  I can say that not getting lunch was a problem.  (By the time I got dinner on, I was seeing sparkly shapes in the corner of my vision.) 

In the midst of my bitchiness, I told my daughter she had to take a nap instead of going to the park, because her voice is hoarse and she has a fever.  A kind woman would have left out the "instead of going to the park" part.  I wasn't feeling kind.

I know Linden HATES being told to lay down during the day; it's a pretty sure way to trigger at least a minor tantrum from her.  In the orphanage they had to nap after lunch, and she bitterly resented it.  So that made her yell and kick, which led to more meanness from me, but I calmed down first, and went to, "I know you don't like to nap during the day.  That's why you only have to when you're sick.  Your body needs some time to rest."  I told her I'd set my alarm for 20 minutes, but wouldn't start the time until she was laying down and closing her eyes.  She stormed, "If you LEAVE, I'm going to SIT UP!" and I calmly responded, "That's why I'll be right here." 

She really is an obedient little girl most of the time, so instead of jumping on the bed or dashing for the door, as Oak would have, she grumpily lay down and played with a stuffed animal for awhile.  I reminded her the time would start when she closed her eyes, so she turned her back to me, clearly planning to KEEP HER EYES OPEN while obeying me otherwise. 

She was asleep within two minutes.

Five hours later, she's still sleeping. 

I tried to get her up for dinner, but she rolled back over and went back to sleep.  I've taken her into the bathroom and given her some water, then just tucked her back in.  Her skin is still hot.  She's sick.  She needed to go to bed. 

Mean Mama still loses, but it helps a little, knowing she really did need to go to bed.  The park (with a splash pad!) would have been a lousy idea. 

There's also this. I spent four of those hours with my son.  (The Winemaker went out for the evening.)  This is rare.  Homework time is probably his only guarantee for one-on-one time with me, when I will send Linden away if she tries to horn in.  (This may be the secret of why we don't really have the homework battles I know some families have.)  He had lost privileges for his new phone*, and needed to do three "jobs" to earn it back.  Friday night the kids are normally excused from dinner and dishes duty, but he helped me dry dishes tonight for one job.  Then we went outside and cleaned up the branches the Winemaker had trimmed from the magnolia tree today.  Oak got to stand in the yard debris bin and squash everything in, which he loved.  Job two.  Afterwards, I read him some stories while he massaged lotion into my feet.  Job three.  This is something I've done for him several times, and I must say it was lovely to receive the same gentle care back.  With the three jobs done, we put his phone in the charger, and he brushed his teeth so we could watch ALL of The Lion King together.  Watching movies is usually a weekend morning event, before the parents get up, so it was another nice treat for us to cozy up in the big chair together and share the experience.  He'd say, "I love this part!  You'll love it too, Mom."  Then I laid down with him so he could get to sleep easily. 

Nice Mama wins.

I'm gonna do this. 

Still nervous about the doctor appointment. 

Sugar, sugar

You know about the five love languages,?  The idea being that we all have different ways we receive and express love, and that if you're expecting someone to show you their love by, say, buying you a Ferrari, but they show their love by getting up in the cold every morning to turn the furnace on so the house is warm when you get up--well, that's kind of a screwy example, sorry.  But the point is, if you recognize one kind of expression of love, and your beloved shows their love differently,  you may miss it, and become sad and/or resentful, which is one of life's less appealing emotional cocktails. 

Well, my love language for children is Sugar.  As in, I love you, so I bake for you.  I love you, so I sneak you a little treat.  I love you, so I put chocolate chips in your pancakes, let you lick the beater, and hand you bubble gum when you're doing your homework, because Karyn Purvis says it's okay. 

The Winemaker, on the other hand, sees frequent doses of sugar as setting the kids up for obesity, diabetes, and a lifetime of emotional eating.  (Now, WHERE would he get that idea?!?)  So it's like, the "Die Early" language from his point of view. 

This causes some confusion, and leaves us ripe for triangulation.

On a very related note, tomorrow is Oak's birthday, his first with us.  We had a party with friends, and cheesecake, and goodie bags with candy, and a present from a friend that included a bag of candy, today.  Now I'm working on his real birthday cake, which involves, yes, licking the beater and helping frost, and so on.  I'm all, "But it's his birthday!" and the Winemaker is all "But we know that if we bend the rules once we fight the battle eternally after that!" 

I'm Not Dead Yet.

Okay.  Well.  Hmm.

I haven't been writing lately.  I can think of three main reasons:

1.  Both laptops got seriously ill about a month ago.  I'm back on tonight because the Winemaker spent a couple of days this week doing the long-delayed emergency surgery, and it seems they will limp along for some more time, much like an old car, or, sad to say, my 81 year old father.  Since I'm not under 25, blogging on my phone didn't work for me.  Blogging at work didn't seem like a good idea either.

2.  The only time I have for writing is after the kids go to bed.  This happens about an hour before I SHOULD go to bed, and about two hours before I DO go to bed.  I'm trying to get closer to the 'should' time, and anyway, even two hours a day gets rapidly sucked up in other stuff, like paying bills and randomly surfing the internet.  (Do people still say that--"surfing"?  It sounds dated, but how else do you describe wandering from website to website until you say, "Oh shit, now I'm only going to get 5 and a half hours of sleep!"?)

3.  Things have been pretty lousy lately.  It started on Mother's Day, and hasn't really eased up since.  When I tried to schedule extra therapy, I couldn't find any slots in our therapist's calendar, because, she explained, her calendar "exploded" (her term) the day after Mother's Day.  So, there's that--we're not alone.  But the wall-to-wall disregulation, which has now even spread to the one remaining sane member of the family, is hard to write about.  Plus, frankly, it eats up a lot of time, meaning that 1-2 hour window at the end of the day finds me exhausted and way behind on all tasks. 

Wednesday night I went to bed and realized that the most productive thing I'd done all day was wash my hair.  One's day shouldn't really peak at 6:20 am.

Thursday was better.  So was today.  We're not out of the woods yet, but catching my breath (and a repaired computer) made me decide to write even if I only have time to write a little bit.  It won't be great stuff.  But I kind of need it.  Reading the lovely, inspiring and/or hilarious words of other writers is great, but I need to write my own mediocre stuff in order to work on my own life. 

In Which I Attempt to Amputate a Digit

Six-thirty in the morning.  I'm dressed, my lunch is packed, I'm putting together a grab-n-go breakfast for myself before slipping back upstairs to get our not-a-morning person daughter out of bed and dressed, thus saving the Winemaker from a solid hour of nagging as he gets the kids ready for school after my departure. 

As I cut the French bread, left by a guest from Saturday's party, the knife slips and nicks my finger. 

Only, as I realize even before the pain hits (it might have been the way I had to yank the knife back OUT of my finger that clued me in), I didn't just nick it, or even slice it.  I chopped.  My finger.  Not to the bone, but deep, and wide. 

So my husband's day started with me standing next to our bed, hand wrapped in a towel, saying, "Get up!  I hurt myself!"  There are actually 3 of us that are not morning people, so the way he instantly lurched to his feet and got to work on my wound was truly impressive.  We decided that I couldn't just slap a bandaid on it and head to work, so I called the school and arranged for a sub.

We got the kids up, and I had the rare treat of walking them to the bus stop.  We went into emergency at the local hospital, and had the surreal experience of being treated by a good friend's ex-wife.  She seemed so...professional.    I got a tetanus shot, a numbing shot, and a measley four sutures.  It all took just long enough that I missed the half day cutoff for the sub, and wound up free about five hours earlier than usual.

I'm going to back up and seemingly change topics here, but I've got a point I'm working towards.  Trust me.  (To which my mother invariably responded, "Last time you said that, we had twins.") 

I've been binge eating lately.  I've never had eating disorders, and although I've steadily gained weight as I've aged, it hasn't been to an alarming extent.  I was pleased to drop 10 pounds during my first six months as a mom--they kept me so active, and I was modeling healthier eating habits.  But the past few months, I've kind of gotten out of control.  Most of it is secretive--I have a candy stash at work.   I stop on my way home at the grocery store and plow through a bag of cookies in the car.  Late night scarfing of chocolate chips.  I can see the weight gain.  My kids have both asked if I'm having a baby.  Clothes are getting tight. 

Today was different.  I still had sweets (because, duh, I'm still me), but without compulsively overdoing it.  There were a few times I could have snuck something, but it just didn't sound that great.

Here's my theory.  I was being taken care of a lot today.  When I called my work to find out about coming in, they told me they'd hired an all day sub, so I should just relax.  My husband was solicitous about carrying things, making dinner, doing the dishes.  The kids were gentle with me (if morbidly excited to see the actual stitches when we changed the bandages tonight).  There were times when I didn't really have anything to do.  May I repeat that?  There were times when I didn't really have anything to do.  I sat in the sun, skimming Karyn Purvis's book and watching the neighborhood kids play soccer. 

I let other people take care of me, take care of "my" resonsibilities. 

And I didn't feel an urge to be a sugar whore glutton. 

Hmm.  I'm going to mull that over for awhile.  I think it's time I find a way to take care of myself that doesn't involve gorging my way to a bigger me or slicing off digits to get a break.